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French Bosses Top Euro-League
For a people who trust capitalism far less than the citizens of any other developed or developing country, the French are very good at it. A survey showed that half Europe's top twenty executives are running French companies.
As the Guardian notes, despite headlines and rage about "fat cat" executives, only two in the top twenty were from Britain. These were Vodafone's Arun Sarin ($15.2 million) and the RBS's Fred Goodwin (16th, with $7.8 million).
The highest paid boss was Carlos Ghosn of Renault, who pocketed $45.5m (£22.2m) last year. His pay increased sevenfold in the space of a year. Jean-Paul Agon, chief executive of L'Oréal, was in second place with $19.3 million and Alessandro Profumo, CEO of Italian bank UniCredit, came third with $18.1m.
The story is distorted, however, by the fact that French bosses rely on share options to boost their salaries: Mr Ghosn received $43 million worth of share options last year. The Guardian notes that British bosses receive long-term incentives, which the survey did not count.
